thedefog's Profile

how is this for digital rights management: A few people have mentioned about how DRM protects artists with song downloads, ensuring that they are getting their just dues for their hard work. Being an artist myself, and having my music on iTunes, I can voulche that iTunes downloads yeild about a $.20 to $.30 greater pay to the artist than any other digital music provider. This is excellent for any artist, emerging or established. 20 or 30 cents per a download, multiply that by 100,000., it adds up. That, I am grateful for, even though I haven't and probably won't see numbers like that for my songs; One aspect of digital media control that works to the benefit of the artist. Now, going back to the topic of sharing and trading music, an emerging artist NEEDS this in order to succeed. I don't know how many copies of tapes and cds I asked for and received from friends growing up. Not being able to hear something before you buy it is like buying a painting stricktly on hearsay. To a certain degree, the right to share music with others needs to be preserved. It's hard to say exactly how this will pan out, but not allowing it at all isn't necessarily the greatest of ideas and may hurt more than it helps. Now I can't speak for the honesty and integrity of the general public when music so easily available to steal through peer to peer clients, but I own every album that I've been turned on to and care enough to listen to more than a couple of times. Not for the support of the artist necessarily, but for the higher sound quality and artwork. Or maybe it's just to have something physical in my hand... Something I can let somebody borrow because they want to hear it, and something that will eventually make that person become a life-long fan.